Local

A Kershaw man died Wednesday after he was severely injured in a brush fire near his home on Victory Road the day before.
The man has been identified by the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office as 79-year-old Billy Gene Wallace.
According to Lancaster County Fire Marshal Russell Rogers, Flat Creek and Kershaw volunteer fire departments, along with full-time employees of Lancaster County Fire Rescue and EMS, responded to the dispatch call at noon, and a landing zone was set up at Flat Creek VFD for the victim to be flown out.

No charges will be filed in the death of Jerrell White following a six-month investigation, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division announced Thursday.
White, a 22-year-old college student, disappeared early July 5 after an Independence Day party at a Pleasant Road house in the Primus community. His body was recovered four days later from a nearby pond.
The case “has been closed and no charges will be brought,” SLED spokesman Thom Berry said Thursday.

KERSHAW – Reversing itself on turning Stevens Park over to the county, the town of Kershaw will hang on to its recreation centerpiece, even though it’s a big money-losing proposition.
“To cut through the chase, this council wants to keep the facility,” Mayor Mark Dorman said at Tuesday’s meeting of the county’s Joint Recreation Commission. The commission moved its January meeting to Kershaw so it could tour the facility.

A Lancaster County Detention Center guard has been charged Monday with supplying marijuana, cell phones and other contraband to prisoners.
Christopher Paul Sweet, 33, of Fort Mill, was arrested Monday on warrants that accused him of furnishing contraband to a county prisoner and misconduct in office, sheriff’s spokesman Doug Barfield said Wednesday.
Sweet’s arrest was followed Tuesday morning by dismissal of Debbie Horne, the detention center’s administrator for 24 years. It was not clear if the actions were related.

Fire destroyed a house on West Shiloh Unity Road north of Lancaster early Tuesday morning.
According to Lancaster County Fire Marshal Russell Rogers, the fire started in a rear bedroom and spread through the rest of the house.
“It was pretty far gone before the fire department got there,” he said.
The dispatch call went out shortly after 5 a.m. and Shiloh Zion, Charlotte Road/Van Wyck and Riverside volunteer fire departments responded.

Nearly 900 Lancaster County homes lost power Saturday night during frigid weather, some for several hours, after a car knocked down a power pole on Zion Road in Buford.
The accident happened shortly after 8:30 p.m. on Zion Road, near Old Pardue Road, nearly 3 miles northeast of Lancaster. According to Lance Cpl. Gary Miller with S.C. Highway Patrol, one vehicle was travelling west on Zion Road and hit the power pole, which caused another vehicle, which was heading east, to run into downed power lines.

Lancaster County experienced sub-20-degree lows for seven consecutive days, a harrowing cold snap that ended Monday morning.
By Tuesday afternoon, it felt downright springlike, with temperatures in the 60s and glorious sunshine.
The Charlotte office of the National Weather Service, which has been collecting data since 1878, matched our seven straight frigid nights, and said that tied for its fourth-longest below-20 cold snap on record. Columbia had six consecutive days, breaking its record of five.

HEATH SPRINGS – First responders worked for nearly two hours Saturday but were unable to save a horse that wandered out onto a frozen pond on Cottage Road and fell through the ice.
Mike Dazzo with Lancaster County EMS said the dispatch call originally went out as a fallen person, but when paramedic Tony Graham and his partner, Daniel Mahaffey, arrived on-scene, they immediately called for assistance from the fire department.

The Katawba Valley Land Trust has named Dick Christie its new executive director.
“I’ve only been here a week, but I’ve accomplished a little bit,” said Christie, who took the job at the local land conservancy Jan. 1 after the retirement of Barry Beasley. “I’ve got some pretty large shoes to fill.”

KERSHAW – Haile Gold Mine’s owner has donated 367 acres along Flat Creek in eastern Lancaster County to the Katawba Valley Land Trust, adding to the thousands of acres the company has set aside for conservation.
The tracts border S.C. 265 and Taxahaw Road, with a good deal of frontage along the creek.
“We’re real excited about the properties,” said KVLT Executive Director Dick Christie. “It’s going to be land that’s protected through best management practices.”